Changes
by Kenk67
Summary: One thing leads to another and suddenly everything is different. How will the most unpredictable ninja develop? Who knows? NaruIno only. Looking for Betas.
1. New Beginnings

** As I announced a few days ago, this chapter was slightly changed for grammar mistakes.**

**Greetings Wanderers! Ha, I probably shouldn't be writing this I have so many papers due, but every once in a while the allure of writing does bring me back. Mostly the Naruto Ino stories. God has there been a better-written fic than Better Left Unsaid? Loved it. Read it 4-5 times. Neo-Yondaime is also amazing, but I love the possibilities in just Naruto and Ino. Something about it seems right even though they don't have any real interactions in the show/books. I feel like everyone overlooks how similar the two are and honestly, if you think about it, they really don't look bad together. The two, very loud, very stubborn blondes. Seems like they would get nowhere... I digress. In many parts, I may skip over some events. I don't really feel like writing some of the main plot points in the show/manga just because I know that if I'm not interested in it won't come out well. A good example of this would be the preliminaries of the Chunin exams. I don't feel a need to write about Hinata and Neji so I'll probably reference it but skip over it. Anyways Ja ne! See you at the end. **

Everything was fine in Konoha, the shinobi village within the land of fire, one of the five biggest Elemental Nations. It was a nice day out, the sun shined brightly over the city. The clouds were big and calming. The villagers were out and about. Nothing out of the ordinar-

"NARUTO!"

Ah yes. That too. How could anyone forget? The shouts of people screaming at a young Naruto racing through the streets. How nice. How peaceful.

"Naruto! Get back here this instant!" yelled the man with a large scar across his nose.

Said blond chuckled a bit like the prankster he was as he sprinted through the streets of Konohagakure. He knew that he would probably be in trouble for doing this. Hell, probably some major trouble, but it didn't matter to him.

_At least I'll be able to talk to Jiji. _he thought. It had been a while. After all, the current greatest ninja of the village had a lot on his plate. It was nice to be able to drop by and say hi even if it meant causing trouble to do so. He couldn't contain his excitement to see him.

"You can't just deface the Hokage monument like that!"

Oh. Right. That. Maybe the Hokage wouldn't be _that _happy to see him after what he sees what he did to the Hokage's face. But then again, the man had always liked a good laugh. _Oh well_. Naruto figured he would find out when the ANBU eventually caught him. He turned back to see that Iruka-sensei was starting to catch up.

_But I sure as hell can't let Iruka-sensei catch me. _

He could see the anger in Iruka-sensei's eyes. It wasn't like the rage that the villagers seemed to have, it was more of a "I can't believe you did this" kind of rage. He knew he would get hell if he got caught by sensei. There was no way he was going to deal with that sort of rage right now. _That_ rage usually meant he would have to grade papers. Or even worse, clean the toilets.

Naruto turned on the jets leaving Iruka in the dust as the people around him were beginning to react to the graffitied monument. The Shodaime's cheeks were painted bright red as if to make it seem like he was deeply blushing. The Nindaime was given giant fake eyelashes and a dash of red on his lips to make it look like he was cross-dressing. The Sandaime had a giant stick… sticking out of his mouth much like the pipe that is regularly found with the Sandaime. His eyes were also painted slightly red as if he had not got any sleep. Or something like that. (A/N wink) The great Yondaime, personally Naruto's favorite, had been left untouched. He couldn't imagine the great Yondaime like that. The villagers apparently had mixed feelings. He could hear them talking as he ran by.

"I can't believe he did that."

"That might be the funniest thing I've ever seen! Haha!''

He smiled as he kept running, Naruto felt a little bad about ditching Iruka-sensei, Iruka was nothing but kind to him. However, a prankster gotta do what he gotta do.

_Hokage's Tower_

Hiruzen Sarutobi could admit he was an old man. He had lived three times as long as a regular ninja normally would, so he really couldn't say anything. But in all the time he had been alive, no one had ever been ballsy, no, idiotic enough to try to accomplish what Naruto had done. He stood on the top of the Hokage tower looking at the defaced mountain.

_Naruto-kun, you always manage to surprise me. _He paused a moment, "Neko-san, Boar-san. Could you bring Naruto-kun to my office," he called out calmly with a small smile on his face.

Two shinobi with masks related to their names appeared, seemingly out of thin air. "Hai Hokage-sama." They stopped a second and stared at said mountain.

"Do you think he'll ever stop Hokage-sama?" Boar asked, knowing that if he wasn't on duty he would be cracking the hell up.

"As much as I wish to say yes... Naruto, I believe, will always be Naruto," Hiruzen replied, not taking his eyes off the mountain.

Neko's mirth could be easily detected, even through her mask, "We wouldn't want it any other way though would we?"

"That we don't, Naruto-kun brings life to the village that no one else can. It seems that if he doesn't make things interesting, something will always make things interesting for him."

The Anbu both nodded and quickly disappeared with a shunshin.

_Moments later in the Hokage Office_

"Hey Jiji! You called?" The blond said as he was held by the back of his shirt in the hand of Boar.

The eldest Sarutobi waved his hand and Naruto was immediately dropped to the floor and the pair of Anbu disappeared.

"OOF- Could've given me a warning you know!" he yelled while rubbing his head. He looked back to only see leaves in the air. He stared in amazement, "Jiji can you teach me how to do that?"

The Hokage smiled before getting serious, "In due time Naruto, in due time. Now, would you like to tell me a story about your day."

"Oh, yea sure. So I overheard a conversation today while I was at Ichiraku's and there was a dad talking to his kid something about a bird and a be-"

Hiruzen coughed rather forcefully to avoid the conversation he had accidentally almost started. The kid was eight. There was no way he was going to have that conversation with an 8-year-old. Never ever. Having that conversation with Asuma was already one time too many and he was 13 when he got that talk. "No Naruto, that's not the story I was looking for. You know what it is. What made you ever want to do such a thing?"

"Well, it's been a while since I've done a prank, and I felt that that technically meant that I had pranks saved up, which means that I should prank a large number of people to offset that."

The Third Hokage sighed, "Naruto, you know better than to do that. You should know what the Hokage means to the people."

Naruto had the decency to look ashamed, "Sorry Jiji, I won't do it again."

Hiruzen eyed what Naruto was wearing, "Thank you Naruto-kun, but now regale this old man, how in the world did you do it while wearing that monstrosity… and where did you even get it?"

_Kami it's an eyesore._

"Huh? Oh, this?" Naruto looked down at his orange workman's jumpsuit… thing. "I started to grow more, and I didn't want to keep having to spend money on new clothes every time I grow more. That clothing tax is insane! Besides I noticed that during the afternoon the light hits the Hokage monument in a way that no one would ever see me!"

The Third's eyes narrowed, getting a mix of surprise and suspicion. However he decided to leave the fact that a child, specifically how_ Naruto_ could work out a plan like that and focus on the more pressing matter.

"Clothing tax? Do you mean sales tax?"

"No! That's the cheap one right? The owner told me that the Clothing tax was 50%!"

The old man sighed, the people of this village were really stupid. The law he had put in place said no one could talk about the kyuubi, but that didn't mean that they wouldn't try to get around it. It was like they thought that he wouldn't do anything if they got caught. "Oh did they? Could you tell who did this?"

"Who? What do you mean who? They all do! And there's the Grocery tax, the Rent tax, and the-" Naruto stopped as he suddenly felt some crazy killer intent coming off of the old man's body. "Jiji?"

The Kage relaxed. He sighed once more as he brought out his pen and paper, "Naruto-kun, please write down the list of people who have told you about these taxes."

"Sure Jiji," the misinformed child replied as he reached for the pen.

_It seems that it has been too long since I have shown my power as Hokage. _The Third thought. He had told some of the trusted Jonin to tell him whenever they saw anything happen to Naruto, but the villagers seemed to have figured out not to do anything bad in front of the ninjas. _I have failed Naruto-kun too much. I need to make this up to him somehow. _He glanced over to the disgusting orange clothes. _We might as well start there. _

"Naruto-kun, how about you and I spend the day together?"

Naruto's eyes shot up as he looked up from the paper. The Sandaime could see the eyes sparkling, "Really Jiji? You have time for that?"

The Third smiled, "Come, let's get out of this kami-forsaken office."

"What do you mean by that?"

The kage looked over his shoulder at the stack of paperwork that awaited him. Kami, how he wished he could say a stray katon jutsu came along and burned it all away. He had to figure out a way to deal with it. Yea. Paper-go-away no jutsu. _I am the god of shinobi. I can do this._

Naruto stared incredulously as he saw his grandfather figure's eye twitch and decided he really didn't want to know. "Let's go!"

"Yes… let's go, indeed. One moment, Naruto I'll meet you outside the door, I need to talk to someone for a second."

"Got it!" Naruto quickly left and closed the door.

The God of Shinobi picked up the piece of paper that Naruto had left on the table, "Neko-san, could you please tell Inoichi-san that it would seem that he will be having a lot of company very soon that needs a very deep mind search?"

"Hai Hokage-sama."

_Konoha Shopping District_

"Okay, I'm coming out now…" Naruto called out from the Shinobi clothing store, Shinobi Arms.

Sarutobi turned to see the little blond devil walk out of the fitting room.

His pants were the standard black shinobi pants that end at the ankle. He wore a very dark blue, almost black, long sleeve shirt with a dash of orange going down the sides of the shirt in a serpentine pattern.

"You're looking good, Naruto-kun."

"Thanks Oji!

"Hokage-sama isn't kidding you really do look good!", said a voice coming from another part of the store.

The two turned around to see a giant man wearing a black apron coming towards them.

"Ah yes, Naruto-kun this is Yoshie Shiratori (pronounced Yo-she-aye sheer-a-tory). He is the owner of this shop."

"Thank you Hokage-sama, but please Uzumaki-san, call me Yoshi.

Naruto nodded, "Then please just call me Naruto, Uzumaki-san feels so strange."

The man smiled, "Understood Naruto-san, how do you feel about your clothes?"

"Great! My jumpsuit was really itchy on the inside to be honest. Here take a lo-" Naruto turned to grab his jumpsuit from the dressing room, but it was nowhere to be found. "Huh… where'd it go?"

The Hokage stepped in quickly, "Don't you worry about that Naruto-kun, I'm sure it's in a better place..." He coughed.

_Alley next to store_

"**Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu!**"

"Thank god we never have to see _THAT_ thing again," whispered Boar.

_Back in the store_

"You wouldn't have been able to wear that thing when you become a ninja anyways. Orange is so bright, it'll get you killed immediately on any kind of stealth mission," Yoshi reasoned.

"I guess you're right," Naruto replied disappointedly, "but I sorta liked it…"

The Third quickly changed the subject to lift the young man's mood, "Naruto-kun, how about I give you a few jutsus to learn?"

Naruto stared at the Hokage suspiciously, "Jiji, are you sick or something?"

Hiruzen looked back incredulously, "No, why would you say that?"

"You've just been so nice today! I don't mind, but I've been asking for jutus for years! And you're always busy, it doesn't make sense how you have time to take me out like this. Something is just off!"

_Okay Hiruzen, think. How do I get myself out of this one… Should I tell him? _The Hokage started to sweat as he thought. _I would prefer not to tell Naruto about Kyuubi until he's at least a Chunin. However, my crystal ball has shown me that Naruto has definitely matured at least a little bit and it really is unfair that he doesn't know why the villagers act the way they do. _He looked at Naruto who was on his toes, waiting for an answer. He sighed. "Let's go back to your apartment and I'll tell you a little story. But first we pay."

_Naruto's Apartment_

"So what's up Jiji!"  
Hiruzen did not speak immediately. He had bought himself some time to think of the best way to go about this, but it would be rough any way he could think of. "Naruto-kun, there are many secrets about you that even you are not allowed to know."  
Naruto turned his head slightly, confused, "That makes no sense Jiji. Why can't I know about myself?"

"No it doesn't, but there are subjects I do not want to tell you until you are older." Naruto's face fell slightly, "But there is something that I have been keeping from you that has been making this old man feel guilty."

The blond's face came back up to reform the questioning look, "What is it?"

"The reason the villagers have a hatred for you."

The child's eyes widened, "You know?"

"Yes, Naruto-kun. Do you remember the taxes from earlier today?" Naruto nodded, "None of those taxes are real."

Naruto stayed silent at this. The Hokage could no longer see Naruto's eyes as the blond had lowered them to the ground. He took this as a sign to continue.

"They're doing this because you have the Kyuubi inside of you"

Naruto's eyes bulged out as his eyes flew back towards the kage.

It was quiet again for a moment until the Naruto uttered a reply that Sarutobi could barely hear, "That makes… sense"

Hiruzen stopped, of all the responses he would have expected from Nartuo, "That makes sense" was the most unlikely. "Why do you say that Naruto?"

"I mean I was bored the other day so I read a book-"

Hiruzen coughed. _Naruto's reading? Hell might've frozen over. _

Naruto eyed the old man, but continued, "It said that the Yondaime had killed the bijuu, but honestly that didn't make much sense to me."

"Why?"

Naruto started walking in circles rubbing his hands together nervously, "Well, I don't know, it seemed weird that something made out of pure chakra and rage could be taken down forever. I learned in the academy that energy is never destroyed, but instead it takes another form."

Naruto paused, realizing what that could implicate, "Wait a second… DOES THAT MEAN I'M THE KYUUBI?"

The Third mentally hit himself in the face, "Sorry Naruto, what I meant was that the Fourth Hokage sealed the Kyuubi in you." He took out a scroll and a kunai from somewhere in his clothes. He opened up the scroll and placed the kunai inside. "You can see here that the scroll and kunai are two seperate entities, right?"

Naruto nodded.

"Good. now if I do this. **Fuin**!" The kunai disappeared into the scroll. "The kunai is now gone, but it still exists. It is not the scroll itself, it is simply held in it. Do you understand?"

"I think so. I'm guessing that's why the villagers are scared though, right? They think it's me? Or it'll become me?"

"Most likely," The Hokage sadly looked at the boy, "What do you think about that?"

"I think the villagers are stupid!"

Ah yes. There is the Naruto we all know and love.

_Still impulsive as ever. However, he is a lot more mature than I could have ever imagined. I thought he would go wild with this information. _He saw an opportunity to take this conversation in a new direction, "With what you know now, what would you like to do?"

"I'm going to change the way everyone thinks! I get that they don't acknowledge me now, but I'm going to work hard and become Hokage! Then everyone will _have_ to acknowledge me!" Naruto exclaimed.

The Professor thought about Naruto's statement, "That is a good dream Naruto-kun, but you must remember that you don't become Hokage in order to be acknowledged. The one who is acknowledged by everyone in the village is the one that becomes Hokage."

"Got it Jiji! Then I'll become the best damn ninja around! I'll never back down! I'll never go back on my word! That'll be my nindo!" Naruto exclaimed with emphasis.

The Third's eyes widened fractionally in shock. _The Will of Fire shines bright in you, Naruto. _

"With that kind of thinking, you will get to wherever you want to, Naruto-kun. I will be the first to say that I believe in you." Sarutobi said as he poofed two more scrolls into his hand. "These will be very helpful to you as you begin your journey. The first scroll contains a few basic chakra exercises to gain better chakra control. The second contains a few different basic jutsus as well as a few taijutsu styles for you to use as you see fit." Hiruzen thought about Naruto's massive chakra reserves. Even as an academy student, his chakra reserves dwarfed most jonins. It would make him a user of the Kage Bunshin. "Come to my office after school tomorrow, I may also have a jutsu that is perfect for you."

Naruto had never been happier in his short little life, "Thank you so much Jiji! I won't let you down!"

The old man smiled as he handed the scrolls to Naruto, "I think to start you off, it would be good to have a tutor of sorts to help you. I think I know exactly the right person to help you with your taijutsu."

_And it serves as a great punishment for what you did to the Hokage monument. I just hope Gai-san won't have Naruto shout "Youth!" every other sentence. If so, I may have to kill Naruto then commit seppuku as self punishment. _

The Hokage decided to try to put an end to it before it even started. "Naruto, please promise me you won't let your sensei influence you too much. Only listen to him about Taijutsu. Understand?"

Naruto looked at the Hokage confused, "What do you mean Jiji?"

"Let's just say the punishment you will receive if I see you wear a green leotard after I got you your new clothes will be greater than any punishment received in mankind."

"Green leotard?"

"Yes, I highly recommend you take my advice."

"Sure Jiji…"

"I shall take my leave. I'll see you tomorrow." The Sandaime said before he shunshined away.

**Well that's the beginning! I hope to make this an epic story type, one that crosses through many story arcs. I do need someone to help me edit the story and make it better as this is one of the first stories I would be writing. So, if you have decent editing skills for story writing, please hit me up! I know some of my lines are not the strongest and I would like to improve.**

**I already know what I will write for the second chapter, so I'll start on that soon. I actually cut this chapter short because I couldn't think of a way to start the next part without bringing out what I want to do next. Most likely I will update about every two weeks. It seems like the most reasonable with the amount of time I have. However, I really do want to get the second chapter out so that one may come quicker. I have a great plan all the way until the Team Assignments which I haven't decided yet and I have plans for the stories afterwards. **

**See y'all later.**


	2. Progress

**Hey y'all! The reviews for the last chapter seemed to be positive. I'll discuss some of the things pointed out. About the seriousness/jokes, that is about what I'm going for. Especially for the chapters that don't have a lot going on, I want to make up for it with jokes. The first chapter was a decent example of that. I wanted to establish that Naruto is going to be smarter than the norm while also starting the base of the story. Anyways, someone asked in my Pms about my likes and dislikes. Little surprised, but I will indulge. I like dialogue a lot. I am a scriptwriter sometimes and dialogue is what is most important to me. I dislike description because I'm bad at it, I would like to improve, but in the element of film, I can imagine what they would wear and what they will do, but usually, I don't have to structure my description the way I do here. I can say they wear a blue shirt instead of describing it in the depth that the story requires. This chapter is once again very information-based and I apologize. I need to set up the characters however and this is the only way. I will preface, I stole the name of Ino's mom from a story called Outfoxed, I simply couldn't find a real name for her, so I used the name from that story. Not many fics I've read really mention her mom. **

**EXTRA. So uh… it's been a few months LOL. The finals wiped me out and most of them were 4-5 pages essays. God I hate college classes. But after that I didn't want to write anything for a good long time. Now that I am stuck at home in quarantine (I live in CA, we are all quarantined here) I can finally write again without having to focus on other work. I would also like to say that this chapter has been written since around the first chapter, I was just so unhappy with it that I didn't want to put it out. However, I am starting to realize that I need to finish this boring chapter so I can start writing more plot driven chapters which will be more entertaining. Thanks Y'all. Sorry for the delay. Stay safe out there from Corona. **

**Also I am restructuring the First chapter right now so it flows better. Jesus my writing is shitty.**

Ino Yamanaka was a simple girl. She may have been young, but she knew what she wanted to do with her life. She wanted to be a kunoichi. She wanted to study flowers. And she wanted to be the happiest she could be. The academy was the first step for her to accomplish the first of her dreams. She wanted to make friends with most of the students. The current group would most likely be seeing each other for the rest of their ninja careers and they would end up working together for most of it as well. That would lead to them being very close anyway so it was better to start those bonds early.

The blonde lazily looked through the class as Iruka-sensei droned on. Her eyes shifted from one member to another. She could already tell that only a few of them had the actual potential to be ninja. The people who were in clans were a given. They had natural talent that most of the civilians didn't have. Her eyes settled on her pink-haired friend. Sakura was a civilian, but she was the most likely to become something. However, she needed the motivation to do well or else she would fail. Her eyes flicked to the Uchiha.

Maybe it would have been enough for Sakura to try to impress Sasuke by herself. But, ever since they had made their rivalry, Sakura had been trying even harder to beat Ino in being a ninja as well as beating her in love.

Did she like Sasuke? To be honest, she didn't really care for him. He was too quiet, too set on beating his brother or whatever. He brooded a lot and wasn't a great talker. It seemed unhealthy. A psychologist would have a field day with him.

Speaking of psychologists, her eyes went over to the only other blond in the room. She was certain he was at least a little insane. His perpetual rant about becoming Hokage and some of his actions in class proved her theory right, a least a little bit. As a ninja he was okay. In the Taijutsu lessons that they have done so far, he was the best. He had no real style, but his energy seemed endless. The blond would simply wear out the opponent. At the same time, his ninjutsu was subpar, and his written grades were absolutely terrible. The class hadn't gone over Genjutsu yet, but seeing how the reason his ninjutsu wasn't great was because of his abysmal chakra control, it was most likely he would be even worse at that subject. Not very Hokage like.

However, he was interesting. Her father had started asking about him recently and seemed genuinely concerned for him. He even asked her to ask him to dinner at their house sometime. It was odd because, to her knowledge, they had never met.

_Flashback to night before_

The Yamanaka family were sitting in their dining room eating dinner. Inoichi sat between his two lovely ladies, his wife and daughter. He looked over to his wife, a very young-looking brunette although she was near the same age as him. She had very similar facial features as their daughter, and if a picture was held with them at the same age, the only difference would be their hair color.

"Ino-hime how are your classes going?" asked her father.

"Good! It's been a lot of fun!"  
"Great to hear, have you made any new friends?" inquired Kana.

"A few, but I'm not really sure about them. Kiba is loud and annoying," a tick mark appeared on her forehead as she recalled the dog boy's actions. "Shino is really quiet and the same with Hinata. I still talk mostly with Shika and Choji."

"How about Sakura?"  
Ino snorted, "All she cares about is trying to get _Sasuke-kun's_ attention. Still she's doing well in class. "

Inoichi nodded, he had expected as much, but he wanted to try to push the conversation towards Naruto. He had always supported the fellow blond and he was one of the people the Hokage had trusted to take care of Naruto indirectly. This afternoon, he had received a bunch of people in the Torture and Interrogation center due to their feelings about the gaki.

Holy hell, people were dumb. He never could understand the civilians' hate for the kid. Even if they did kill him, would it not occur to them that the Kyuubi would come back and kill them? If they would stop and think for a few seconds it _should_ dawn on them.

In the initial announcement, the Hokage said Naruto was holding the Kyuubi inside of him and specifically stated that he was not the Kyuubi reincarnate. Many of the ninjas already knew this, but the civis apparently weren't listening.

He felt a hand on his arm that brought him out of his thoughts. Kana was looking over at him with a knowing look. They had discussed the blond many times, even going to call him, in private, "the Fourth".

They used this as a play on words to refer to him as the 4th member of their family and as the son of the Yondaime. He and his wife were close to Minato and Kushina. Himself, Hiashi, and Minato were on the same genin team and remained close until Minato's untimely death. Hiashi and him still talked very often. He knew that Kushina was pregnant and he swore to do his best to protect one of his closest friend's child after the incident.

He had tried to adopt him, but the Hokage wouldn't allow it, due to it making an imbalance in clan power. However, after the things he learned today, he would have to have a chat with the Third one more time.

Inoichi refocused on his daughter, "There wouldn't happen to be a Naruto in your class would there?" He already knew the answer. Something about Naruto made him unforgettable.

"Oh yea, Naruto. He's gotten pretty close to Shikamaru and Choji after the two offered him some lunch on the first day. I haven't really talked to him yet though."

This was an interesting development, he would have to talk to his buddies later about the boy's friendship with their kids.

"He seems like a nice kid, why don't you invite him over for dinner sometime?" Kana asked with a smile on her face. She wanted to get to know Naruto on a more personal level as well. She and Kushina had celebrated so much when they found out they were pregnant at the same time. She chuckled to herself as she remembered their talks to get their kids together so they could be really related.

Ino looked over to her dad who had nodded at the idea. Her dad never liked any boy. She knew he was joking, but he had scared the crap out of Shikamaru and Choji to "protect" his daughter, but now here he was, openly inviting her to bring a boy over.

"Sure, if we start talking more I'll bring him over." She said as she flashed a smile at her parents.

_Flashback end_

Ino sighed, something was up and her parents were being oddly secretive about it. She continued to think about the blond, searching for the reason her parents would be so interested. His chakra didn't make any sense. No civilian had that much chakra, so he had to be part of some sort of clan. Maybe that was it. She couldn't think of that many blondes in Konoha, so maybe he was distant family?

_I'll look into that later, _she thought.

There was also intelligence to his madness. Many of his pranks required meticulous planning and a lot of work. From what she heard from Shikamaru the way he played shogi was maddening. It was some sort of organized insanity. None of his moves should make sense, but a lot of the games put Shikamaru in his "thinking" pose, which she had not yet been able to accomplish.

"Ino?"

Ino was quickly brought out of her thoughts as she saw Iruka-sensei looking straight at her. "Sorry sensei what did you say?"

"I asked how many nations there were."

"Five, Iruka-sensei."

Iruka nodded, "Good, please try to pay better attention."

Ino sighed as the teacher focused his attention elsewhere. She was putting too much thought into nothing. Her parents probably were just curious about her classmates and she decided to leave it at that.

Naruto looked up to see Ino quickly look away from him. He shrugged and looked back towards Iruka-sensei.

_Outside of Academy_

"Kami today was boring…" Naruto grumbled as he put his hands behind his head. "Why do we have to learn about geography." he said to no one in particular. He perked up as he remembered he was supposed to meet the Hokage today.

"I wonder what Jiji is going to teach me today?" Naruto wondered out loud as he made his way towards the tower. He grinned as he saw the window of the Hokage's office open. "I might as well surprise him."

_Inside the Hokage office._

The Third sat on his desk doing the killer of all kages, paperwork. He really had no idea how Minato had been able to enjoy his life outside of the office, even when he was Hokage. Sarutobi wished that he had passed that secret along back to him. He looked up as he heard his window rattle. Huh. Interesting. He got up and observed his window from afar.

_Kami he's becoming like Jiraiya as well. _

Sarutobi decided to end this prank before it got too far. "Hello Naruto-kun, how was class today?"

"EHH?" Naruto said as he fell from a ceiling tile close to the window. "How did you know I was there? I was so careful!"

"I would not be Hokage if I were so easily fooled."

Naruto nodded at the answer. It made sense. The Third was the strongest person he knew. "What jutsu were you going to show me Jiji?"

"Ah yes. I almost forgot," The old man reached into one of his drawers to pull out a set of scrolls, "I actually have a couple scrolls for you." He grabbed the first scroll, "This one is the most important to your training. It contains a jutsu called Kage Bunshin."

"Er.. Jiji? Why would a Bunshin be useful to me during training."

The Kage shook his head, "Naruto, a bunshin and kage bunshin are not the same thing." He quickly made the signs for the kage bunshin, "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" A perfect copy of Sarutobi appeared. He moved towards Naruto and placed his hand on Naruto's head.

Naruto's eyes widened at the meaning behind the action, "So a kage bunshin is solid?"

"Yes, but not only that, they are very useful for training and spying. Anything they learn, you learn as well. Do you understand the possibilities of that?"

Naruto leaned back as he put a hand to his chin, "I could send out the Kage Bunshin and then dispel them to learn what is going on." his eyes widened once more as he thought about the second half of the Hokage's sentence, "You said I learn anything they learn?"

"Yes."  
"Then any jutsu I learn or any katas I practice, I can just make multiple kage bunshin and I could shorten training time from months to weeks or days?"

"Yes! Good job Naruto-kun! You figured it out!" Sarutobi said with a smile.

"That seems a little overpowered, Jiji." Naruto deadpanned.

"Yes one would imagine it is," The old man replied with a slight sweatdrop.

"Why don't more people use it to train?"

"It requires a lot of chakra due to it splitting the user's chakra every time it's used. It goes from half to fourth to eighth, and keeps exponentially splitting the chakra, eventually killing the user." The Third looked over at the sweating Naruto's face, knowing what he was thinking. "Thankfully, it was as if this jutsu was custom made for you as you have a near infinite amount of chakra."

Naruto beamed, "Hell yea! Me and my Kage Bunshin army will beat everyone!"

"Now for the other things I would like to give you," The leader brought out a piece of paper, "You've learned how to channel chakra already I presume?"

Naruto nodded.

"Good, please channel some chakra into this paper for me, Naruto-kun."

Naruto did as he was told and the chakra suddenly cut in half. Surprisingly, it started turning into wood and then it went up in flames.

The blond freaked out as he threw the piece of paper, "AH! WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT!"

Sandaime chuckled at the boy's actions, but internally he was astonished. _Naruto has the Mokuton? Wind and fire, sure, but Mokuton? That could only mean… _Hiruzen looked over to the picture of his Team 7. He stood in the middle with Orochimaru, Jiraiya, and Tsunade standing in front of him. _Interesting. I'll need to call a few people back._

"Oy! Jiji! What the hell are you tryna do? Are you trying to kill me!?"

"Ah, sorry Naruto-kun, that was chakra paper, it helps me determine what sort of jutsus I should give you."

"Oh, cool! What did it tell you?"

He hesitated for a second, debating whether or not to tell Naruto about the Mokuton, "You have fire and wind elements that will come naturally to you." He stopped. _Why not? _He mused._ Maybe Naruto will be able to master it early. It is better for him to know now and train it up instead of being very behind later._ "You also seem to have a third element in you that is very rare. A kekkei genkai in fact."

"A what?"  
The Hokage sighed. "Sorry, I forgot that you're fresh in the academy. A kekkei genkai is a bloodline. A good example would be the Sharingan and the Byakugan"

Naruto, who's already had a lot of revelations today, could not handle his excitement, "DOES THAT MEAN I HAVE A CLAN?!"

Hiruzen sighed mentally at his misstep, he decided to make this someone else's problem. "Naruto, your last name as it is, the Uzumakis, are a clan. Read about them in the book I gave you. But it does mean, I will have to bring some people back to train you."

"Who's going to train me?"

Hiruzen smiled with a glint in his eyes, "Some of Konoha's legends."

Naruto's eyes' glimmered with excitement.

Hiruzen looked at his clock. "Ah Naruto I believe it is time for your lesson with your tutor. Please go down to Training Ground 27 to meet with him."

Naruto nodded and started walking out the door but suddenly stopped and turned back, "Wait Jiji, seriously. What do you mean by green leotard?"

"Sometimes the best part of the journey is the discovery, not the end."

Naruto deadpanned, "Screw you, you old man."

Hiruzen chuckled as the soon to be ninja walked out the door. He turned towards the window that faced the city. The old man slowly lowered himself back onto his chair. _Things are about to get interesting._

A Chunin secretary came bursting through the door almost the second after he sat down. "Hokage-sama, Inoichi-san is here to see you."

_Oh Kami, why is the life of Hokage so busy. I have to pass this job to someone soon._

He sighed, "Send him in Ryu-san."

The blond man strode in like a man on a mission. "Hello Hokage-sama."

The Hokage watched the blonde man walk in and sighed once more. He had a determined face. This was going to be a long meeting.

_Training Ground 27_

"I wonder what could be so weird about this guy that Jiji would go and warn me about him?" Naruto thought out loud.

He sat down by a tree in the grounds and started reading his scrolls since he had nothing better to do while he waited.

_Interesting. This Jutsu really is very simple. It's just like throwing a bunch of chakra out at once. Seems like a waste only a few people can learn this. _

Naruto put up the familiar cross, "**Kage Bunshin no Jutsu"**

*Poof*  
A cloud appeared next to him as an exact copy came out.

"Yo, what's up boss?"

Naruto looked at him in surprise, "I didn't know you could talk."

"Of course I can. I'm basically just you, but you can command me around."

Naruto, "Huh so how are you teaching me things I don't know if you're just me."

The clone froze, "I- I don't know. It's just how it works, accept it."

Naruto sighed, "well thanks, I don't need you right now so-"

The clone was poofed away.

_That was actually so cool though, what the hell? I can always have someone to bounce ideas off of, even if it's just me!_

His mind started wandering away as he heard a distant "YOSH" and a rumbling as if a herd of elephants were running. _What in the world?_

He got up and saw a very… green man running towards him… in a green leotard. "Kami, he got me back, didn't he?" He said, thinking of the old man.

The man stopped,"YOSH! You must be Naruto! The flames of youth shine brightly in you! I am Gai, your taijutsu specialist!"

_Kami save me..._

**For those of you who got through that, thank you. I honestly had so much trouble writing this chapter because I found it rather boring because like I said, it is supposed to set up future chapters. I just wanted to get the basics out of the way. Please be safe from the virus, stay home if you can. Sure the mortality rate is a little worse than the flu, but it's about not spreading it to people who may be more susceptible **


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